Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 19:27:49 GMT
Server: NCSA/1.4
Content-type: text/html
Last-modified: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 00:04:30 GMT
Content-length: 3063

<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>Active Messages</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR=#D0D0D0>
<H2>Active Messages</H2>
<HR>
<B>
<h3>
Updated <!WA0><A href="http://now.cs.berkeley.edu/AM/am-spec-2.0.ps"> Active Messages Interface
Specification as of 9/28/1996
</a> </h3>
<p>

This interface generalizes previous active messages interfaces to 
support a broader spectrum of applications such as client/server 
programs, file systems, operating systems, as well continuing 
support for parallel programs. 
<p>
<HR>
<br>
With recent advances in local area networks, networks of workstations
differ from massively parallel processors primarily in packaging, 
cost and software emphasis. The key open architectural question is 
the nature of the network interface or the 
<EM> communication architecture</EM>:
its hardware organization and logical abstraction as a basis for communication.
<p>
Active Messages represent a RISC approach to communication, providing simple
primitives, rather than solutions, which expose the full hardware 
performance to higher layers. Active Messages are intended to serve as 
a substrate for building libraries that provide higher-level 
communication abstractions and for generating communication code from 
a parallel-language compiler, rather than for direct use by programmers. 
It is currently in use at UC Berkeley by the  
<!WA1><A HREF="http://now.cs.berkeley.edu/Fastcomm/fastcomm.html">Fast Communication</A> layers (sockets, RPC and MPI),  
the <!WA2><A HREF="http://now.cs.berkeley.edu/Xfs/xfs.html">xFS</A> parallel file system,  
the <!WA3><A HREF="http://http.cs.berkeley.edu/projects/parallel/castle/split-c/split-c.html">
Split-C </A> and Id compilers, as well as in other libraries like Scalapack.
<p>
This project investigates Active Messages on a broad range of hardware, 
including a dedicated message processor per node (Intel Paragon and Myrinet)
an FDDI interface at the graphics bus of a high end workstation 
(HP 735 with Medusa), and a conventional interface to the next generation
LAN (Sparc 10 with Sahi-1 ATM). We will thus demonstrate concepts by 
construction and evaluate them on real programs on real machines. The 
result will be a clearer understanding of the communication architecture 
and trade-offs in the hardware organization of the network interface. 

<!WA4><A href="http://now.cs.berkeley.edu/Papers/papers.html"><H3>Search for 
Papers</H3></a>

<HR>
<H3>
        Software Releases
</H3>
<!WA5><A href="http://now.cs.berkeley.edu/AM/lam_release.html"> Lanai Active Messages  </a>
<p>
<HR>
<H3>People</H3>
Professors
<UL>

<LI><!WA6><A href="http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~culler/index.html">David E. Culler</A>

</UL>
<P>
 Students
<P><UL>
<LI> <!WA7><A href="http://u96.cs.berkeley.edu/~bnc">Brent Chun</A>
<LI><!WA8><A href="http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~ced">Cedric Krumbein</A>
<LI><!WA9><A href="http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~alanm">Alan Mainwaring</A>
<LI><!WA10><A href="http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~rmartin">Rich Martin</A>
<LI><!WA11><A href="http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~chad">Chad Yoshikawa</A>
</UL>
<HR>
</B>
<I> Last Modified: Wed Jun 19 03:34:59 PDT 1996<BR>
<B><!WA12><A HREF="mailto:cal@now.CS.Berkeley.EDU">cal@now.CS.Berkeley.EDU</A></B>
</I>
</B>
</BODY> 
</HTML>
